Everybody has their place and use in a particular historical time and context, but that doesn’t make them relevant forever…
Ancient thought and doctrines lose their utility over X amount of time, and so become an archive for our reference and curiosity.
But it is also kind of obvious, don’t you think?
Without offering concrete ways of getting out from under our limitations- and Plato never offers concrete means.
What of the Apology, derleydoo, if you would - is it not a pompous address, aimed clearly at the not so bright?
Who in his right mind would not laugh at Socrates for assuming to not be a rhetoric genius but rather a simple man telling such a simple thing as “the truth”?
No I don’t find that - if not for ancient thought I would find very little to respect in this world. I don’t find that there has been much of worth since before Plato, until Nietzsche who thought the same, and brought back a healthy, sane way of thinking.
But what is it you are doing here now if not trying to change my mind? Of course philosophy is about changing peoples minds; but slowly, and not the small tendentious mind of opinions but the deep, oceanic mind of a priori assumptions.
Changing the inner images.
Plato certainly did such a thing but not all change has to be lauded just for being prominent.
Yes. He said he would be first understood by my generation.
Or perhaps I am one of the few to ares to see the folly in his words. There is no shortage of people who deeply admire him and they come in all ages. But why? Surely not because he plays a real role in peoples lives. It is a thing of renown and fame, he is being judged in a very favourable light, people don’t really dare to criticize him.
The cave allegory is sort of creative, but doesn’t illuminate. And what else has he accomplished?
Would someone who speaks in the way of the Apology, be capable of speaking honest thoughts?
Be honest. Would you trust someone who talks like that now?
Of course I would. This whole deep business appears to undermine itself , meaning the millennia of created knowledge by a parallel mode, that uses the hypothetical depth of measurement to gradually unfold its true depth.
Coming up too fast, does create insurmountable problems, but had these been not laid out totally, can not be invalidate either, the core, or the periphery of a necessary relation.
Contingency has to meet necessity, even in the most abstract formulation.
Fixed wrote;
"What of the Apology, derleydoo, if you would - is it not a pompous address, aimed clearly at the not so bright?
Who in his right mind would not laugh at Socrates for assuming to not be a rhetoric genius but rather a simple man telling such a simple thing as "the truth "
This comment not only disclaims the relevance of Platonic thought , but disqualifies the idea that the simplest things are substantial in the history of thought, which after all gave rise to the complexities that were built upon it.
If there ever was an insubstantial argument, this is it.
If the sort of argument like this is disqualified, then may as well dismiss any reason to claim any value to academic lead ing based on essential learning from intuitive-a priori sources.
William James could be eliminated, Husserl, most of the great Jewish minor and major prophets, the Catholic mystics, core oriented psychologists, the list is long and in my opinion corresponding a shadow world that has mostly been ignored and neglected, and in many cases suppressed.
Thinkers of all sorts map the array of the science of philosophy, many has built upon the universal principles that built application on hypothesis.
The wisdom of the general supposition of universal principles augment wisdom in particular ways.
To wit;
"So Meno has defined the general concept of virtue by identifying it with one specific kind of virtue. Socrates then clarifies what he wants with an analogy. … Socrates’ response: Everyone desires what they think is good (an idea one encounters in many of Plato’s dialogues)
This explains something though - your trust of Socrates, who to me is sounding as honest and as interesting as a used car salesman, might have to do with your trust of holier-than-thou politicians and newspapers.
I only trust/like the ruggedly honest, those who do not have an “image” to worry about, those who dont spend 57 pages explaining how little they know and how much they should be trusted before they come to a statement. The statement is always empty when it comes. But lauded by the masses because, be fair, they’ve waited for it 57 pages. Sunken cost fallacy.
Re the good comment: that is a tautology. Yes, the good is what we desire. We desire what is good. That is the meaning of the word “good”. Socrates made this into something very “deep” and yet without any substance. What he presumes to reveal has been known since the invention of the word “good”.
This is Plato’s trademark - find the completely obvious, shroud it in fancy words so as to obscure its natural significance, and pretend that one needs a pompous liar like Socrates to be enlightened to it. Which then even doesn’t work, as the concept of Good was entirely lost after these dirty bastards had their way with it.
Value ontology finally breaks into the “good” concept and shows how it can be operated philosophically, restoring the possibility of it.
— Neither of the writers you mention have even a trace of the self-unaware deceitfulness of Socrates.
The deceit is staring you in the face, and you wish to see only dignity. I know how that is, I used to have the same vice in my social circle. I want them to be less shitty than they are so I overlook the obvious. I never had it before philosophers.
—-
To get this clear, I really do think Socrates obscures what philosophy is.
And I do not think my concerns have at all been addressed by the noble posters here. Not at all. Not in the least.
In fact no one ever manages to counter my argument that Socrates is an absolute bitch.
Several of my philosophers friend hold the man in dear regard but cant bring themselves, it seems, to recognize the literal truth in front of them - that which Sokrates actually says.
What he actually says is very often pure and blatant lies, as the opening of the Apology exemplifies.
His whole Spiel is an exultation of the disingenuous. In being disingenuous he is indeed something of a Wunderkind. He manages to be as dishonest in a few sentences as most people work their whole lives to be.
That’s probably because you’ve not actually made an argument… you’re just asserting it repeatedly.
The appropriate response to which is ask you to clarify your reasons and if those reasons are not forthcoming, cannot be substantiated or are otherwise flawed…
Then ignoring your insistent proclamations seems a fairly sensible course of action.
Very few people are committed to proselytizing and the compulsion to convince you that you are wrong is lacking.
Most of us care if WE’re wrong and we engage with others to hopefully have them shed some light on things we might have overlooked.
If you can’t convince us that we are wrong and don’t show an interest in discovering that you are either, then we’re content to leave you to your unsubstantiated musings.
I hold very few ancient/past thinkers in high regard… they were relevant and/or revered in their time, but do they hold much weight now? Da Vinci does, but he is a personal favourite of mine, so he does… for me.
MagsJ,
But what of the high regard that the golden age stands for? Are we at a loss
to explain that it’s fashionable to sustaine it, by virtue of nothing
else then some aspiration ,
some sustenance for a backward look
Are such musings simply become a self destructive effort to signal a total eradication of memory?
Are robotics a preferred foreshadowing of an absolute necessity to cut off such MUSINGS as irrevocably non binding?
Has the is the ’ IS displaced by the the Should? Or reversely?
Does not Nirtzhe fail of such reversal?
All these questions tie together in a neat bouquet of sensible propositions, but are such senses not defeated by a higher order sensibility?
At the very least, they become useful in a twilight world of sleep, from which arcytipical correspondences cam be made to interpret the real, from the shadow world .
Such are not mere vamporostoc thrusts into the world of the imagination, but real life attempts to visualize, to configure that, which was intentionally planted into the fertile ground of image making , by the ancients.
Ancients endure because of this tremendous, all inclusive and inclusive foreshadowing of things to come.
Um, no.
You have had fun writing down your complicated words.
Now address my argument.
Da Vinci is a relative moderner though.
Jesus himself was, if he existed, really interesting, Ill admit that, much more than Socrates. But other than him and a few people who dared to continue thinking rationally, despite the influence of Socrates and Aristotle, (such as Archimedes), I don’t see any value until Francis Bacon, who began to directly look at things again, which Socrates caused man to abandon. (After all, the truth was not what you did with your hand or saw with your eyes, but what the little voice in your head said.)
Meno Look at Socrates against the Classical Age.
His fame occurs during the ruination of Athens, at the end of the Classical age and leading art into the Hellenic age, which is generally considered to be decadent.
The glory lies in the period leading from archaism to mastery, a period of a century - Socrates is already too spoiled to even perceive the concentration, the Titanic effort which nature had pushed through Greek hands in order to produce his environment.
Ill amend this to make clear that I understand that I frame this with a slant- the correspondence of the narratives of art and philosophy warrant this; philosophy is ahead of art, or lets say its most extended avant guard.
For those who do not have the power to discern any argument in the identification of a profane rhetorical lie in a philosophers discourse, I offer this image: I compare Socrates to Andy Warhol.
Both were famous for being famous. “Ah Sokrates, your fame now eclipses that of all the other philosophers”.
What the hell kind of philosopher wants to be around people all the time?
Hi Fixed:
Although I do understand that my immediate lapses of answering may occasionally occur, just got here to Navada, from Seattle via Portland, I barely glanced at Your narrative.
That You deserve a reply. is obvious but its 1:30 am here in Vegas, and will go at it, as soon the demands made on me subside, hopefully tomorrow.
Thanks
I think Socrates or the Platonic socrates we have access to, deserves credit for a style of philosophizing. Where instead asserting a position, he interrogates and deconstructs, so to speak, his interlocuters’ positions. That is, the Socratic method. We’re used to this now, it doesn’t seem so special, but then, that’s because it’s been around since then. Socrates actual positions I am not fond of, but still I think they contribute to the range of options. I also think that neoplatonism still lives on in mathematics and physics in interesting ways. (I am pretty poor at disentangling Plato and Socrates, of course this is in part due to them being entangled by Plato, and then my own laziness).
I actually saw an exhibit of early design work by Warhol (album covers for example) where his actual technical drawing and design skills were involved and he was pretty damn good. From there he became something like a performance artist and I think has some value for that. Some of his experimental films are interesting. AGain, adding to the range, not an end in himself, so for me like Plato/Socrates. Also as part of postmodernism. I am not a postmodernist, however it had to happen, was a necessary balancing correction to modernism and what came before that. Even if I don’t stay there it informs me and I appreciate facets of it in its place.
I suppose what bothered me about Socrates has always been the denied utter smugness or his ‘humility’. Never bought it.
Yeah, me neither.
And, as someone who considers style to be perhaps the most fatefully honest element of any corpus of literature (style betrays the will), I take that objection very seriously.
Yes. Socrates did become famous for the interrogating, quasi non-positive method. But… he continuously makes mischievous manipulative statements in his discourse, in the guise of rhetorical questions. His dishonesty runs far deeper than his fake humility. It pervades his entire method.
Surely there have been people who have interrogated more honestly than Socrates did, and I would say the Sokratic Method is particular to he art of manipulation; “gently” (to the ears of brutes) pushing and guiding the mind of the… victim… towards where he wants it.
I like Warhol too, actually. But I would not trust him with anything whatsoever that is important to me. He is there for display purposes only, like Socrates. Warhol was a hell of a lot more honest in that, a less damaging presence altogether, but I don’t think the man would mind the comparison.
Meno, please report back some stories from that Fata Morgana come to life - what are you doing in Vegas?
As far as heroes are concerned,
I’m my only hero on earth, and that’s not saying much !!!
I suggest you all become your own heroes as well…
It’s not easy, actually, it sucks!
Better than the alternative though!